KCTE/LA Web Privacy Policy

Information request form

The information request form at http://www.kcte.org/info.html submits an email form to the Public Relations Chair of KCTE/LA at pr@kcte.org for further routing to the proper member of the KCTE/LA board.

Call for conference papers

The annual call for conference papers at http://www.kcte.org/conference/call.html submits an email form to the Conference Chair for KCTE/LA at conference@kcte.org who may then forward it to the section vice presidents for consideration. The Web maintainer retains a copy all submissions on site to assure that all electronically submitted calls are considered by the conference jurors.

Interactive membership-query and update form

The interactive membership-query and update form is not currently functional. We hope to have it back on line in the future.

Secure credit card entry form

The secure credit card entry form at https://secure.kcte.net/conference/register.html connects to an encrypted and secure line to our credit card provider whose computers verify and process credit card information. Our provider performs extensive tests to assure that the connection between our server and theirs is safe and that the software used is operating properly. We are certified secure by GeoTrust®.

Electronic mail lists

Most of the electronic mail lists maintained on the KCTE/LA server are open to subscription by anyone who is interested in the topics being discussed. Some are restricted to certain persons who are working on specific projects. All lists whether opened or closed have their membership information either restricted only to those who are also subscribed to that list or are restricted so that no one (even subscribers) can find subscriber information. All lists are administered by the majordomo program which appends subscription information to each posting. For more information about public lists maintained by KCTE/LA, please visit the page at http://www.kcte.org/hypermail/index.html or fill out the majordomo-contact form at http://www.kcte.org/lists/index.html .

Electronic forums

The KCTE/LA web site supports three different forum programs, hypermail, Drupal, and Ceilidh. Hypermail is really more an email-discussion list archiver than it is a forum--at least as we have it configured on this web site. However, hypermail does make it possible for anyone who visits the site to read and respond to email list messages posted to many of the lists maintained by KCTE/LA. Therefore, those who post to these mailing lists should be aware that what they have posted is saved for later reference at the address http://www.kcte.org/hypermail/index.html .

Ceilidh is a commercial software package that supports realtime forums. The person who maintains the KCTE/LA web site has set up a number of forums and a guest book using Ceilidh. The Ceilidh forums allow anonymous posting.

The Drupal software is open source. Our organization uses Drupal for discussions related to English studies. These forums are open to the public although they require that posters register and use a password for access. The Drupal site is http://www.kyenglish.org/ .

The web site maintainer has also set up the standard robots.txt robot-exclusion file to discourage those who would use software to create lists of email names from these forums. The maintainer analyzes the web site's access logs daily to determine whether these "bots" are acting in an ethical manner. Those bots who continue to access directories that are marked as off limits to them are denied future access.

The printed forms mailed to the treasurer, the membership chair, or other officers of KCTE/LA are not governed by this privacy policy, but are governed by the rule that no membership information can be shared with anyone outside the board of KCTE/LA without a majority vote of the board. The only long-standing arrangements to which the board has assented are sharing names and addresses of our members with the NCTE affiliates office (an annual requirement from NCTE); sharing names and school-districts (but no other information) of conference attendees with companies that provide for refreshments, book signings, and receptions at the conference; and providing mailing labels of members for the Kentucky Department of Education mailings of special events of interest only to our membership (e.g. summer workshops in teaching literature).

Electronic mail lists

Web sites are subject to attack in a number of ways. Some attacks are carried out by seemingly legitimate companies which hope to collect massive lists of email addresses to sell to other companies or to use themselves. Other attacks are carried out by individuals who simply wish to break in for the thrill of it.

It is unlikely that every attack can be prevented. But there are steps a web maintainer can take to reduce the effects of such attacks or the possibility of their being repeated. The maintainer of this site reserves the right, therefore, to deny access from any individual, ISP, or domain that repeatedly ignores established guidelines of ethical access. These include, but are not limited to, companies or individuals which

• attempt to reroute this server's sendmail commands to send spam to others,
• use robots to search files or directories which are listed as off limits in the robots.txt file,
• attempt to access programs which are known to be used by crackers as a way to compromise or damage servers on the Internet,
• repeatedly attempt to access directories or files for which password access is required but to which they have no access rights, or
• maintain faulty cache servers (or other automatic-update devices) which repeatedly request files from this server thus blocking access by other users.